Pages

Friday, September 14, 2007

Filmmaker Julia encourages everyone in the Halifax area to take in some of the film festival this weekend and next week. The Opening Gala was last night and it's turned into quite an event for the city. Not that I was there, mind you - one of these days, though!

Here's Chris Elsen, whom you may remember from my 25th high school reunion, carousing the night away at the Film Festival Opening Night Gala with two lovely lasses

photo by Jamie Paterson, The Daily News

Here are some of the flicks I'm interested in seeing (though I'll only get to one of them at the festival)-

Toronto director Clement Virgo is bringing Poor Boy’s Game, his exploration of racial tensions in Halifax, to the Atlantic Film Festival on Saturday (its commercial debut in Canadian theatres on Oct. 5.)Halifax’s Chaz Thorne, who penned the script for Poor Boy’s Game along with Virgo, sees his feature directorial debut Just Buried screened Friday night.

Poor Boy’s Game is Virgo’s sixth feature, and portrays Donnie Rose, a tough kid in Halifax played by Rossif Sutherland — the half-brother of Keifer Sutherland — emerging from prison after beating and severely crippling a black teenager, Charlie, when he was 17. In the movie’s climatic boxing sequence, Rose is challenged to fight a local boy, played by Flex Alexander, who wants to settle a score in the ring.

But Virgo turns a tale of likely violence and revenge between two communities on its head when Charlie’s father, played by Danny Glover, trains Donnie for the fight so the young man who beat his son senseless can settle his demons and bridge a racial divide." - Etan Vlessing, The Daily News/photo by George Pimentel

"'Just Buried' is a dark comedy about a guy (Jay Baruchel, of the Judd Apatow Repertory Players) who inherits a funeral home in a town no one's dying in because the old folks home burned down. So he and the home's embalmer (Australian Rose Byrne, most recently seen in Danny Boyle's Sunshine) begin killing people, accidentally at first, and then on purpose once they see the profit rolling in."Just Buried is a drastically different film from Poor Boy's Game," says Thorne. "And when people have read both scripts they're just like"—he makes a shocked noise that sounds approximately like "huh-wha!?' —"they can't believe the same writer has written both scripts." - Tara Thorne, The Coast/photo by Jule Malet-Veale

This one I'm REALLY interested in! Romeo Dallaire is one of my true heroes.

" Roger Spottiswoode's 'Shake Hands With the Devil' - The Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax opens Thursdaywith the feature film version of Lt.-General Romeo Dallaire's memoir of his disastrous 1994 mission to Rwanda and his attempt to stop the genocide in the African country.'It didn't take long before I felt that I was on a mission, the mission the general gave me,' actor Roy Dupuis told CBC News. The film was written by Halifax's Michael Donovan and produced by Donovan's Halifax Films, giving the opening gala the local content that is one of the strengths of the Atlantic Film Festival." - CBC.ca Arts/photo by Rob McEwan

Check out the perfect casting for Dallaire: The real man is on the cover of the book, while Quebec actor Roy Dupuis transforms himself into Dallaire's doppleganger.

This one I AM going to see at the festival, with my cousin and her husband. Can't wait!!

"Some books are obvious candidates for a big-screen adaptation, while others would certainly give quite a few directors pause before saying yes.Kubrick famously described Patrick Süskind’s 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer' as impossible to film, though German director Tom Tykwer has proven him wrong. Hopefully the same can be said of French-Canadian director François Girard (Le violon rouge / The Red Violin), who has adapted Alessandro Baricco’s sparse and intensely lyrical bestseller 'Silk' for the big screen. The film adaptation of Silk stars US actor Michael Pitt (The Dreamers), British actress Keira Knightley (Atonement) and Japanese actor Kôji Yakusho (Babel). A co-production between Canada, France, Italy, the UK and Japan," Silk screens next Wednesday night. - Boyd van Hoeij, european-films.net

For a complete listing of festival films, check out the link. Hope to see you there!

If you love film, then nothing beats a festival screening. Everyone in the audience is there because they love movies, so there's none of the stuff that comes with bored people who came to the show because they had nothing better to do. Usually there's a lot more audience response, too. Always a great vibe!

Wow, these all look really great. I haven't been to a film festival, but it sounds like it would be quite an experience, knowing that everyone else was also excited about all the new films. No being kicked in the back of the head by a chronically whining toddler...

I'm so envious... once again I missed the Melbourne International Film Festival - didn't get to see a single movie.

Once upon a time, when the festival was run out of one theatre, which was in walking distance of my then work, I saw 20 films over a 2 week period. Ever since I've dreamed of taking the 2 weeks off work and buying a Festival ticket and just immersing myself in film... closest I've got to it is my mini-festival at home last Christmas - watching 10 DVDs over 3 days... should try that again soon!

Sounds like an AMAZING festival (she says with just a hint of jealousy...)

Dallaire's casting is pretty perfect, looks wise. And you mentioned Silk by the The Red Violin dude -- I have high hopes and look forward to your opinion. The Red Violin is one of the few movies I watched more than once.